Love all the Hemingway! The Kite Runner literally made me faint. I read the particularly disturbing part while I was doing that 3-hour glucose fasting thing at the OB/GYN during my first pregnancy. Bam! So that book is a little tainted for me ;).

Emily, so many good choices. One that caught my eye is “Brave New World.” When we read that in English in the 9th grade, I remember feeling very adult-like. I think we read “1984” and “Animal Farm” that year, as well. It was a coming of age. Thanks for the nice memory. BTG

Nice books! I’ve read Old Man and the Sea (I actually named my son after the old man :-P), Les Mis, Brave New World, and maybe The Lottery. I say ‘maybe’ because I read a short story with that title back in high school but I don’t know if it’s the same one.

I’ve read most of them, but I haven’t read any William Dean Howells yet. And I tried reading Les Miserables years ago but put it down. Haven’t tried again, although The Hunchback of Notre Dame is in my stack.

I have to be honest that I had a hard time with Les Mis too. I powered through it eventually, but I prefer the play, with full acknowledgement that the greatness of the play definitely reflects on Hugo’s genius. You need to read some Howells. Great stuff!

Ouch! I can only claim to have read two of the ones in this list, although I’ve heard of several of them. Good books!
The two I have red are Les Miserables and The Old Man and the Sea. Loved them both! 🙂

I enjoyed The Old Man and The Sea immensely, found Kite Runner vastly overrated, Les Miserables is well worth the effort, Brave New World is on par with 1984 (in my opinion), and Shirley Jackson is rather . . . disturbing.

A lovely selection of book recommendations there! I’m currently tacking ‘The Kite Runner’ and am a huge fan of ‘Les Miserables’ (I must confess to watching the musical and film before reading the book, a big no no in my eyes!) Another confession- I’m not with the hype on ‘The Kite Runner’. It’s good, but not what I expected. If I were to describe it in one word it would have to be overrated. Probably just me! I’ve just done a blog post on my top five current (easy)reads. If you’re interested hop on over! I’ve just revamped it (deleted my previous one as it was far to cluttered) and was wondering whether you could give it some love! If not, no worries! However, I did explain my latest idea at the bottom of my last post – a sort of book club! I’d be interested to “collaborate” with you on it! You seem like the perfect person to share some literary passions with. Give it a thought!
Charlotte 🙂

If someone made me choose, Shirley Jackson would probably be my favorite author. Her writing is so clean yet descriptive while always making you think. Her short stories are gold. Her novels are fantastic as well. Very rarely do I want to turn around and start a book again as soon as I’ve finished it, but that was the case with We Have Always Lived In The Castle. And The Haunting Of Hill House, absolute classic.

The only one of these I’ve read is “The Kite Runner” – before I’d ever heard of it; it was a gift – and I hated it. I really think it’s an awful, unnecessary book. Usually I have good words for books, really; but they all affect me so much that I feel like ones such as this should not have been written, and confuse me with their popularity. Do people recommend it because they feel like they should like it; that because it talks about Afghanistan, we whose countries have intervened there should read it and make ourselves feel those things? Like it’s a sort of penance, or a way to believe that we’ve done something to understand their experience? Do people recommend it because it makes them sound noble, intellectual, or on trend?